


took an L with him and winning ever since

by mockturtletale



Category: K-Drama - Fandom, 치즈인더트랩 | Cheese in the Trap
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Future Fic, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 08:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21194489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mockturtletale/pseuds/mockturtletale
Summary: he’ll give her whatever she wants; no questions asked, just one heart broken and never hers.





	took an L with him and winning ever since

**Author's Note:**

> the ending of this show has annoyed me every single day since it aired. i finally got mad enough about it to write a better version.

it’s been months since the last time he saw her and he hadn’t really expected anything else. 

he stopped going to find her and it’s not like she’s ever come looking for him. 

she chose someone else. if he’s being especially brutal with himself, he’ll even admit that she never considered him, not really. not seriously. 

he gets it. no one really takes him seriously. it is what it is. 

she chose someone else and he chose to spare himself from having to see her happy with someone that wasn’t him. she lives with yoo jung now and he lives alone, still, as usual. 

everything ended just the way it started - with him on the outside. alone, just like always. 

that’s not new. it is what it is. it’s nothing, really, which is what it always kind of was. 

until it without warning is not. nothing, that is. 

it’s thursday evening, the time of day he likes most because it’s quieter than earlier in the day but not so dead silent as night time. 

in-ho’s at work because he’s only ever there, at home, or bailing his sister out of whatever she’s neck deep in this week. it’s been a while since a strange number showed up on his phone’s screen, though, so even she seems to have dropped him, lately. people need him to do things for them, they don’t ever just plain need him and that’s fine because he doesn’t know what it’s like to be needed that way, that much. he’d probably suck at it, anyway. 

he makes messes and he cleans them up. that’s all he’s good at, really. 

so here he is, cleaning up after a bunch of spoiled, rich college kids who just toss their garbage on the ground without a thought for who will pick up after them, so accustomed are they to having others do whatever they find unpleasant or pointless. 

it’s fine. it’s easy, which makes a nice change, so he does it the same way he’s been doing most things lately; automatically. without thought. because he has to. because it’s expected of him. 

doing things because he wanted to is stupid. it makes him look stupid. leaves him feeling stupid, too. he’s over that. he’s done with wanting. 

this - the alternative - is fine. 

it could be good, probably, after a while. 

he’s good. 

he’s getting on with it and he isn’t thinking about what she’s doing and whether she’s happy and if she ever thinks about him, because he knows she doesn’t. probably didn’t ever. it hurts in a dull, too familiar kind of way, but that’s not new either. 

he’s fine. he misses having her around, but being her friend or whatever version of that they were doing honestly sucked too, so this is probably better in the long run. 

it’s fine, he’s good. 

and then she walks in. 

or - ‘storms in’ would probably be a more accurate way to describe her entrance. 

he’d thought he was alone in the building, apart from the ahjussi who polishes the floors with twice blasting from his headphones three nights a week. 

any sound or movement would have startled him, but nothing could have prepared him for the burst of sight and sound that she is - an explosion of noise and motion when she pulls the classroom door open so hard that the handle bangs against the wall. her hair is flying, natural curls streaming through the air like an entirely separate entity and the wave of color they make distracts him so much that it takes him a second to realize that her mouth is moving, because she’s …. she’s yelling. at him. 

he picks up a lot of ‘ya’s, and not so much as a hint of polite speech, which is probably the least startling thing about this entire event, so far. 

he definitely looks stupid right now, he knows, because he can’t seem to get his mouth to close and his eyes are so dry they sting, but he couldn’t blink right now if his life depended on it. she’s here, and she looks … wild, in the best possible way. she’s yelling and she’s clearly pissed off, probably at him, but he can’t stop himself from grinning like a total idiot, because he’s only ever seen glimpses of this in her before, but he loves this. he loves her like this. 

“dog fur. have you gone feral?” he asks, not sure which answer would disappoint him more. 

she all but flies across the classroom to reach him and she doesn’t stop when she gets there. she fists a hand in the collar of his shirt (his heart pounds so hard he gasps) and she yanks at him, hard. 

“ya!” she yells, right in his face. he’s not ashamed to admit that he has to hold onto a desk for support for a second, because his knees threaten to buckle, at that. 

he doesn’t even bother trying to remember what he could have done to have her this mad at him, because there’s no point. he’s not even a little bit sorry for whatever it is. he’d probably do it again. 

“yes?” he asks, transfixed. her eyes are blazing, cheeks burnt bright with emotion, and he knows he’s not supposed to, but he loves her. he doesn’t know how not to. “did i do something? did - wait -” a horrifying thought suddenly occurs to him and he has his hands on her shoulders before he even realizes he’s moving, “did someone else do something? did someone - did that bastard do something? because i - i’ll -” 

she laughs and he calms down a little, but not entirely, because she laughs in a sharp, bitter kind of way that he’s never heard from her before. he’ll kill anyone who hurts her and he doesn’t want to examine how seriously he means that. 

“he didn’t do anything. it doesn’t matter what he does, anyway.” 

she’s smiling, and he doesn’t know if he likes it. 

“so who did something? why are you here? why are you … like this?” his hands are still on her shoulders and her fist is still knotted in his shirt, her knuckles hot against the bare skin of his neck. 

he feels like he’s on fire, but she looks like she is. 

“i did something. for once in my life, i did something, in-ho.” 

he’s lost. 

“something … good? or something bad? why are you here? do you need me to -” 

she pushes him. with the hand that’s still wound up in his clothes, she shoves him, but keeps hold of him, doesn’t let him move away from her. 

“is that all you think about? what i need? what everyone around you needs?” her smile falters, but she takes a step closer and he can’t help the way his hands grip her shoulders a little harder; not enough to hurt her, but enough that he can feel that she’s trembling. 

“if you need anything … if you ever need …” he doesn’t know how to say ‘i’ll always do anything for you’ without saying just that. 

“i don’t need anything,” she says, her eyes shining in the half-darkness because only the lights in the corridor are left on at this time of night. her eyes are so big and she’s looking right at him in a way she hasn’t in a long time. 

he doesn’t understand why she’s here, why she’s mad at him, if she doesn’t need anything; if nothing has gone terribly, horribly wrong. 

“but there is something i want,” a little furrow appears between her eyebrows, a soft crinkle of skin that he’s already intimately familiar with and immensely fond of, because it appears when she’s frowning at him, when he gets her to scowl at him. he recognizes the difference now, though, he knows this is her ‘thinking’ eyebrow scrunch. 

“okay,” he says slowly, easily, because he doesn’t understand what’s making her pause. he’ll give her whatever she wants; no questions asked, just one heart broken and never hers. “what is it? and why does it make you mad at me?” 

“i’m not mad at you because of what i want. i’m mad at you because you let me believe i didn’t want it.” she deflates, her mouth tightening into a line like she’s biting at her words and he’s never liked seeing her like this. he’ll piss her off, if he has to, if that’s what it takes to keep her like she came to him; bright and loud and not trying to dull herself even a little. 

“ya,” he says, grinning, because he likes the way that sounds, “don’t get sad about it, whatever it is. your boyfriend will buy it for you, i’m sure. sunbae doesn’t treat you? is that what’s wrong?” 

“oh you bastard,” she’s simmering again, all but hissing at him, “he treats me like something he can buy. he’s always treated me like a thing; a thing he wanted and so could just have.” she bares her teeth and he’s only slightly ashamed at how it makes his breath get locked in his throat. 

“that didn’t seem to bother you before,” he says, carefully, because he still doesn’t know what’s happening or why she’s here. he’s delighted that she is, but he’d also been pretty sure that they were never ever so long as they lived going to have this conversation. it didn’t seem polite. 

“of course it bothered me, you jerk. it bothered me but i went along with it anyway because that’s what i’m supposed to do, right? a smart, handsome senior takes an interest in me, wants to date me, what am i supposed to say? no?” 

‘yes’, he thinks, vehemently. he barely keeps himself from nodding. 

“you’re supposed to say whatever you want to say, i guess.” 

“i said yes.” she’s still staring right up at him, hasn’t broken their eye contact once and this is really not helping him to get over her. 

“uh. i know,” he says, tactfully sidestepping telling her about the nights he spent drinking himself to sleep over it so he wouldn’t do something much worse like cry himself to sleep, instead. 

she steps in again, her foot between his, now, and she tugs hard at his shirt. it’s probably going to rip and he already really liked this shirt, but having seol rip it while it’s on him would definitely make it his instant favorite. she’s glaring at him now and she’s so close he can smell her, he can feel the heat of her. his hands fall to cup her elbows, even though what he really wants to do is band them together around her, hold her in his arms even if it’s only this once. 

“why the fuck did you let me say yes?” she asks and his jaw tightens so hard it makes his teeth ache. 

“why the fuck would i think i had any say in what you decided?” he thinks he should probably look away from her, distance himself somehow from this conversation that’s probably going to kill whatever was left of him, after her. he doesn’t. 

“i know you’re not selfish, in-ho. you’re the least selfish person i’ve ever known. i know you’d never expect me to do what you wanted.” and that hurts. it’s a sharp, slicing kind of pain that makes him grimace, because he’d hoped he could live out his life without ever having to hear her acknowledge that he’d wanted her and she’d chosen someone else. “but for me. couldn’t you have stopped me for me?” 

he’s truly lost for words. he knows neither what she wants him to say or what his honest answer is. he’d thought he was doing what was right for her. that was kind of wholly why he’d done it. 

“you chose yoo jung. you wanted him. you thought he would make you happy. isn’t that why … that’s why you picked him. isn’t it?” 

the answer to this question is going to be something he doesn’t want to hear, he knows that much. but if she needs to figure out some angle of this mess in order to move on, to be happy, then so be it. he’s not about to start protecting himself from the ways she hurts him now. 

“‘chose’. ‘picked’.” she almost spits the words at him. “you make it sound so simple. like it was just an ‘a’ or ‘b’, a ‘this’ or ‘that’.” 

to him, that’s exactly what it had seemed like.

“i -” she stops and breaks eye contact for the first time since she exploded in here. she leans in and puts her forehead to his chest, speaking into the fabric when she continues, “i just did what i was supposed to. i didn’t know what to do, so i did what i thought i should.” 

he gets it, even if he doesn’t like it. 

“that’s okay, dog fur. it’s okay to do something because you don’t know what else to do.” he still doesn’t understand what’s gotten her all flustered and why now, all of a sudden. 

she lifts her head to look at him and her eyes are huge, her chest heaving with something he doesn’t know the name of when she speaks, quiet for the first time tonight. 

“is it okay even when it costs you what you wanted?” 

he’s lost all over again. 

“i’m dumb, remember, dog fur? you’re going to have to break this down for me, because i have no idea what you’re talking about. what did you want?” 

she laughs, but she’s tearing up too and her trembling has become a shaking when his hands move of their own accord, up until he’s holding her by both arms. 

“you, you jerk,” a tear slips over the line of her bottom eyelashes and falls in a glittering streak down her cheek. he catches it with the pad of his thumb before it can reach her chin. he looks at the wet shine of it because for the first time he can remember, he can’t look at her. 

“oh, dog fur,” he sighs. he can’t say her name. “now you’re being dumb.” 

“fuck you,” she says and he almost laughs, at any other time he would, because it’s nothing short of completely delightful to hear her swear, and at him, too. she’s awesome. she’s brilliant, always, but especially like this. he likes that this isn’t a side of her that she shows to anyone else even if he hates that that’s because with them, she’s trying to be someone - something - that she isn’t. 

“i picked him because i thought i didn’t have any other choice. i didn’t think i could - i didn’t know -” 

“you can’t tell me you didn’t know how i feel about you, hong seol. don’t even try to say -” 

she takes her hand off his shirt, but only to punch him in the chest, hard. 

“i didn’t know how much it would hurt,” she says, this haunted expression coming over her face, “i didn’t know how much not having you would _hurt_.” 

he shakes his head at her even though he knows it’ll make her furious. 

“that’s no reason to go all hellboy right now, dog fur.” he lets his hands fall back down by his sides and takes a step backwards. it’s time to move away from her, again. “it’s sweet that you missed me so much, but we can be friends if you’re going to have fits over it. i’m a busy guy, but i can make room for you if it’s that big a deal to you.” 

now would be when he ruffles her hair, compares her to a dog some more and then winds her up so much that she thinks she’s relieved when he leaves, finally. but while maybe he can see her again, if that’s what she wants, it won’t be easy, it won’t be like it was, not for a while, at least. 

“you are so dumb it’s ridiculous,” she says and he doesn’t know why she seems surprised. 

“that’s been established, seol. try to keep up. and hey, you might as well help me out since you’re here for no real reason anyway,” he turns away to finish picking up really badly folded paper airplanes and empty snack packs. 

he’s reaching for the waste paper basket he’d left on a desk where he could easily see it in the low lighting when she reaches for him again and if he’d thought her fisting a hand in his shirt was cool, this is going to blow his mind. 

“i don’t want you _around_,” she says, and he blinks; half because that’s a confusing thing for her to say after she’s just pushed him up against a wall, half because - well, she’s just pushed him up against a wall. he’s very confused and not just a little turned on. 

“i want you,” she’s closer than he’d ever even let himself imagine her and he wants so badly to believe her, but he can’t do that to himself. he won’t survive that. 

“dog fur, come to your senses.” he reaches for her. he gets his hands around her wrists and gently tries to pull her hands away from his chest. “you don’t want me. it sucks that we haven’t seen each other in a while, that’s all. you miss me and sure, i missed you too, okay? but that doesn’t mean … you don’t just all of a sudden realize that -” 

her hands lift from his chest, but only to reach up and cup his face and he hates that he knows what that feels like, now. he hates that he’ll never be able to forget what this is like. 

“what ‘all of a sudden’?” she asks, looking at him like he might really be stupid, after all. “you think this is new? you think i just … just figured this out now?” 

he still has his hands around her stupidly tiny wrists and he’s pretty sure his brain is telling them to move, to drop away from her skin because touching her is burning him up, but his traitorous hands stay exactly where they are. he can feel her pulse. 

“things changed a lot, for you, lately, seol-ah. it’s okay to feel … different. to not know how you feel.” 

“i know exactly how i feel. i always have, you idiot. but i thought i wasn’t allowed to. i knew i wasn’t supposed to and i thought that if i did what everyone thought i should then everything would be okay and i’d be happy. but i’m not. the happiest i’ve been in months was earlier on tonight when i told yoo jung that i was going out and that i wouldn’t ever be coming back.” 

he tries to interrupt her there, definitely needs her to repeat that last part about fifty seven times or so, maybe let him record it so he can set it as his ring tone and text alert and alarm clock and just listen to it whenever he feels like it, too. he doesn’t get to say this, though, because she slaps a hand over his mouth. 

“shut up,” she says and his boxers get a little tighter because this woman turns him into a fucking disaster. 

“i broke up with yoo jung and that made me a little bit happier than i have been, but i’m still not happy because you’re not listening to me, you’re not hearing what i’m saying.” 

like this, with her palm hot across the lower half of his face and her other hand still cupping the line of his jaw, he can’t hear anything other than what she’s saying. the fact that she’s stepped in to stand pressed against him from head to toe is also significantly influencing his focus and the sudden distinct lack thereof that he finds himself with. 

“i want you. you make me happy. and i always wanted you, i always did. but i convinced myself that i couldn’t have you and you just let me, so i made a stupid decision and i’m sorry, i’m sorry it took me so long to see how wrong i was but i get it now. i made myself so miserable that it made me _angry_ that i didn’t let myself do what i wanted, go for what i wanted, so i stopped being stupid, okay? and i don’t care now what anyone else thinks, or what i think they think. i care what i think, i care about what i want, now.” 

she stares at him for a moment until she seems to realize that he can’t say anything because her hand is still across his mouth and then she kind of giggles and lets it fall away. but before it can get too far, he grabs it and just holds on. he laces their fingers together and holds on. 

“really?” he asks, because words are her thing, not his, not for moments like this, “are you sure?” he isn’t convinced, but he’s just masochistic enough to follow her lead, at least for now. 

she rolls her eyes and then she fists _both_ of her hands in the collar of his shirt and he hears the sound of fabric tearing, this is so awesome, he thinks, but then she goes up on her toes and kisses him and he forgets how to think at all. 

her mouth is as soft as it looks, and her bottom lip fits so nicely between his teeth that he thinks he falls somehow further in love with her, just at the feel of the swell of it in his mouth, wet from his tongue. she kisses him like she’s mad at him, still, and he’ll piss her off forever if that’s what it takes to get her breathing hard but not for one second stopping; getting her fingers knotted up in his hair and tugging him down to her when she can’t stretch far enough to get them lined up like she wants. 

he breaks away to make fun of her, because if he doesn’t he’s going to embarrass himself instead. 

“wow, dog fur, you really have gone feral. you know, if you wanted to convince me, you could have just kissed me like that as soon as you walked in.” 

he’s trying to smile, but he knows he just looks hungry and that’s okay, because he is. 

she narrows her eyes at him and he’s not sure if she’s about to curse him out or throw him down onto a desk and follow him up, but it’s at that moment that in-ho’s colleague chooses to finally do some work; pushing the floor polisher with one hand along the corridor outside while the other does what looks like the choreography to ‘fancy.’ 

seol’s hands are in his hair and inside the collar of his shirt, but _this_ is what she chooses to look confused at. he loves her. and it’s starting to look a lot like he can, now. 

“ya,” he says, letting his hands fall to her lower back, keeping her close. “want to get out of here?” 

she grins at him, showing all her teeth and he doesn’t know where they’re going, from here, but he knows they’re going together. 

they hide out until the Once ahjussi moves off down around the corner and onto what sounds like ‘me likey’, and then they run down through the building, holding hands in the dark and laughing because they can’t help it. 

he bullies her into getting on his back when they get out onto the street, because it’s raining and he’s faster than she is. 

he jogs back to his place with her heart beating against his shoulder, her arms around his neck and her voice laughing breathlessly in his ear. 

his room doesn’t feel so huge with her in it; doesn’t feel too big tonight.

she dries his hair off with a towel that’s still damp from hers and he doesn’t think about buying a second one. 

that night, falling asleep isn’t a battle. he doesn’t even remember closing his eyes until he’s opening them up again and rolling over to stretch, only to see her doing the same a few feet away. 

she smiles at him, her eyes disappearing with how wide it is, and he hasn’t even said anything to make her happy, he’s just … there. 

“ya,” she says, still smiling, and he’ll probably get around to asking her when they decided to drop the formal speech, but only when he gets tired of how his name sounds from her mouth, so - never, “i got it wrong when i said last night that i want you. what i meant was i love you.” 

his heart stops completely for a second in the middle there, but when it starts up again it goes into something like double time. 

he rolls over again and buries his face in his pillow. 

“aish, hong seol. you’re so forward. day one and you love me? how embarrassing for you.” 

she’s still grinning when she climbs up over him and starts beating him over the head with her pillow. 

she’s not laughing even a little bit when he twists beneath her and catches her hands in his, pulls her down to kiss her ‘good morning’. 

and then to kiss her ‘hello’. 

and then to kiss her ‘i love you too.’ 

and then to kiss her just because he can.

**Author's Note:**

> none of this is true or intended to offend.


End file.
